


one foot in the grave

by jdphoenix



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 18:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5386175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She always thought shock or adrenaline or something would kick in and separate a person from the pain of being shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one foot in the grave

It hurt _so much_. Dying. She always thought shock or adrenaline or something would kick in and separate a person from the pain of being shot - and maybe it would have if only she’d lived long enough, but her last minutes were a sea of quiet, throbbing agony radiating out from her back. Every beat of her heart sent it through her like a wave - or maybe it was the loss, that every beat left her with a little less blood, left her emptier and emptier and soon there’d be nothing left. She could feel it slipping through her fingers, her life draining out of her.

There’s blood on her hands now. Not hers. Not from the well. She doesn’t know who it belongs to but there’s a face behind her eyelids and a voice in her head, screaming and begging.

“It’s okay,” Seth says. He presses a warm towel to her hands, wipes away the blood. Next to her in the sink, the water comes out steaming. She watches ghosts uncurl in the colder air while Seth rubs her fingers raw. “We’ll get you cleaned up. It’s okay,” he says again. She knows he’s not talking to her, just like she knows he’s trying to hurt her. It _should_ hurt. The water’s got his own hands going red and the towel is rough, but it doesn’t hurt at all.

When it was over, when there wasn’t enough blood left inside her to keep her alive and she wasn’t _here_ anymore, the pain was gone. All of it. Not just from the bullets or Scott or damn Gecko boys letting her down. Turns out, pain’s in the air in your lungs and the beating of your heart. It’s in every second you live because all you’re doing is dying all the time, only real slow. But once she finally got it over with, the pain got left behind.

Only now she’s back and all those things she never even knew hurt before? They hurt a million times worse. The clothes on her back feel like they’re sandpaper and every step she takes feels like she’s halfway through running a marathon barefoot. Food tastes like dust and breathing hurts only slightly less than not. She thinks she might understand why Malvado wanted to go back to El Rey so bad, if it meant getting away from all of this.

“Hey,” Seth says. He’s got her hands clean. Physically, anyway. She knows they’re not really.

He tugs her off the counter, his hands big and broad on her waist. A few months ago, they would’ve made her feet warm, now they just make her feel small. Small and young. Seventeen. She died at fucking seventeen. It’s a tragedy and she should think it’s a miracle that she’s back but she can’t. She’s not sure she believes in miracles anymore.

There’s a bedroom. She saw without really seeing it on her way in. Big, nice. The sort of place a guy like Seth Gecko dreams his whole life of having but never makes it to.

“Just go to sleep, okay?” he says. He has to put her in the bed himself - sit her down, set her on her side, lift her legs. It’s not that she _can’t_ do it, it’s that she doesn’t care enough to. “You need anything, there’ll be a guy standing watch outside the door. You just ask him and he’ll get you whatever you need. Water. Food. World Series tickets.” He looks desperate to see her smile at the joke, so she tries. It feels wrong on her face and from his expression, it probably looks it too.

He brushes some of her hair away from her eyes and his whole face goes strange, like he’s seen a ghost. Now that’s funny, but not in the sort of way to make her laugh.

He looks towards the door. “Richie’s gonna wanna talk about …” His eyes swing back to her. “Do you want me to stay?” She doesn’t answer. “Do you want me to go?” She stares at the loose knot of his tie. “Fuck, Kate,” he sighs and walks away.

She doesn’t bother following him with her eyes. It’s easier not to move at all. She can still hear the screaming, but now she can’t pick it out from all the rest that never, ever stops.

The mattress shifts under her. “Shut up,” he says, same way he did the first time they got a room with only one bed and he was too tired to bother with sleeping in shifts. He must be tired now too, his breathing evens out after only a few minutes. Is he tired because of her? Has she caused him some sort of trouble?

She thinks of the car and the side of the road and watching him drive away with blood still wet on her face. _Good_ , she thinks.

She doesn’t sleep much anymore. When she dreams, it’s always about other people, people who lived and died long before she was even born. She doesn’t want to see them. So she makes the effort of rolling onto her back and watching Seth instead.

She watches while his face shifts in dreams and smoothes out again when they’re over. She watches while his mouth forms silent words she can’t read, but some of them she’s sure are screams that never make it out. (She’s very familiar with screams nowadays.) She watches while he tosses and turns and rolls onto her side of the bed. She watches when he throws an arm over her like an anchor and holds her tight enough it should hurt. It doesn’t. Not at all.

 


End file.
